


Graves in Bloom

by vietbluefic



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Character Death In Dream, Dreams, Flowers, Flowertale - Freeform, Flowertale AU, Game Corruption, Gen, Gender-Neutral Frisk, Genocide Frisk, Genocide Sans, Glitches, Hurt/Comfort, Language of Flowers, Lucid Dreaming, Player as Antagonist, Sans Doesn't Remember Resets, Spoilers - Undertale Genocide Route, Spoilers - Undertale Neutral Route, Undertale Genocide Route, Undertale Neutral Route, Undertale Reset Issues, flower symbolism, the player - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 13:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7271029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vietbluefic/pseuds/vietbluefic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each time Frisk resets for yet another run, a flower blooms on the bodies of the monsters. Each reset feeds this beautiful but insidious dusting process that also corrupts the game and warps their reality.</p><p>Somehow, Sans has to convince an unwilling Frisk to stop resetting and let go before it's too late — before the underground becomes a mass grave, blossoming with its own funeral wreaths.</p><p> </p><p>***<br/><i>Based on the <a href="http://neskybo.tumblr.com/tagged/flowertale+related">"Flowertale" AU</a> by <a href="http://neskybo.tumblr.com">neskybo.tumblr.com</a>.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Graves in Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> This AU has plenty of flower aesthetic and symbolism, plus a good deal of angst. All of which are things I like.
> 
> Many, many thanks to the AU creator Neskybo herself and the people who joined me in my streams for this fic. I couldn't have done it without you. <3
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this fic!

It’s an endless blue sky that stretches overhead, high above Sans’ diminutive figure — blue like water, like pressed flowers, spidering veins and the iron in blood. Clear, clear blue in which he can breathe and drown and utterly lose himself, interrupted only by streaks of white cloud. Below, an equally-infinite field of flowers unfurls into the horizon. The blossoms are sunlight-warm against his tibias and fibulas, soft on his bare metatarsals. Rounded petals reach upward for that blue sky — a million tiny suns — and the gentlest, saddest fragrance brushes the inside of his nasal cavity. It’s sweet and bitter both at once: the taste of sweet lemons.

Sans stands surrounded by waving flowers, staring up at an impossibly blue sky, and that’s how he knows that he’s dreaming.

The fields aren’t all golden flowers. Here and there are patches of tuberose-white, mirroring the heavens. A brilliant ball of light suspends itself above and Sans grins wide. He could stay here forever. Just flop down in these rolling, rolling fields and sleep under the sun’s blissful warmth. Take a break. Take a long-deserved rest. A cool breeze blows past, and the tops of the flowers dance lightly.

What an awful, beautiful dream.

There’s someone sitting in a far-off patch of white.

“Huh… Now who could that be?”

Sans debates with himself for a moment, weighing a potentially unpleasant encounter versus a nice long nap, but in the end he just sighs and hikes up his elbows. With not a little trepidation, he heads towards the figure.

They don’t move. When he gets closer, he quirks a brow in recognition. Striped sweater, messy head of hair, thin shoulders: he should’ve realized. Even sitting with their back to him, he’d know them anywhere.

“Hey there, kiddo. What’re you doing out here by yourself?”

A beat. Then they turn.

He freezes.

Their eyes are red as poppies. Tiny golden blooms and bell-shaped white flowers sprout from their skin and throat, exuding a sickeningly saccharine fragrance. The kid smiles.

“Greetings, Sans.”

From the corner of his eye socket, Sans can see the blue, blue sky dissolving. Falling apart into bits, fragmenting as if made of stained glass. The kid closes their eyes although their frozen smile never wavers.

“Would you like to hear a joke?”

He doesn’t get the chance. The sky shatters then into a billion razor-edged splinters; one hurls down and impales his ribcage, fracturing his bones in an explosion of agony. He falls in front of the kid, pinned to the earth by the color of heaven, and the last thing he remembers is the sight of their hands clawing into the soil by his cheek—

And then Sans jolts awake with a gasp. Phantom pain coils tight through his ribs, sweat damp and chill on his bones. There’s no blue sky over him, no faraway clouds or blindingly bright sun: only the wine-mahogany walls and ceiling of his room. Shaking, he lifts his hands to cover his eye sockets, sucking air in deeply enough to make his bones creak. In, out. In, out. The adrenaline rushing through his system eventually settles to uncomfortable prickling along his nerves.

After another second, Sans chuckles feebly. “H-Heh...well...that’s the last time I have Papyrus’ Sunday-special spaghetti before bed…”

Faint blue-white light streams in through his window. He knows the spaghetti isn’t the reason why he’s had such a rude awakening.

Another deep breath. Sans makes himself sit up, swing his legs out of bed, stand upright. The house feels pleasantly warm; Papyrus must have turned the heat on against the caverns’ seeping cold. Agony from splintered bones echoes ghostlike through Sans’ body as he shuffles over to a chest of drawers. Skull fogged with exhaustion, he opens the top drawer and blinks blearily at the closed notebook inside.

A half-hearted fumble rewards him a stub of pencil. He pulls out the lab notebook, flips it open to a middle page. With a wearily slow, deliberate motion, Sans draws yet another tally.

( _Not that there’s much point to it, but hey._ )

“Here’s to another day,” he mutters aloud. His favorite jacket rests on top of the drawers in an undignified heap, and Sans takes a moment to tuck the pencil and book into a pocket. Then, opening another drawer full of sweaters and printed T-shirts, he chooses one at random to get changed.

Except when he pulls off his shirt, something snags and all of a sudden the pain ghosting his chest turns very real.

Crippling agony streaks through his bones and he yelps. Sans staggers but catches himself on the drawers before he can collapse. His vision swims like he’s about to pass out; nausea crushes his head, the taste of bile seeps through his teeth. Breathing hard and trembling, Sans looks down with eye sockets shocked flat black.

A piece of sky greets him.

An impossibly blue flower loops around a rib, right at his sternum, and blooms.

* * *

Sans can feel it in his chest now that he’s realized its presence: feather-light, petals silky soft and cool against his ribs. Which is odd — considering how the bone from which the flower grows tingles numb and cold. But some part of Sans’ reeling mind _swears_ he can feel roots, tangled deep in the roiling magic and marrow of his bones, barely perceptible but definitely _there_. The thought pours cold fear down his spine.

Of course it’s just Sans’ imagination; it doesn’t really hurt. In fact, there’s no sensation at all. He feels nothing where it sprouts, as though all sensitivity’s been leached out by the little blossom.

Unless he tries to pluck the flower. Then pain sears through his chest and the back of his eye sockets and Sans is left sprawled against the wall. Black-and-red spots dance along the edges of his vision, consciousness wavering sickeningly.

Sans digs his fingers into his palm and resolves not to try that again.

When he gets dressed and heads downstairs, Papyrus stands in the kitchen cooking breakfast like always, and Sans covers up his dread as best he can. “Hey,” he says with just the slightest tremor to his grin. “Mornin’, Papyrus.”

His brother turns to return his wide smile, frilled apron tied around his pelvis and spoon in hand. “Good morning, Sans!” he near-shouts with usual cheer — but just when he starts on his daily morning motivational speech, the lights in Sans’ skull go out as he feels his soul plummet down to his feet.

Because right there, right behind the folds of Papyrus’ worn scarf, a soft red flower blooms at the skeleton’s neck.

 _No. No. No, no, no,_ no _._

“Um, Pap?” he interrupts Papyrus’ speech. Somehow he keeps his hand from trembling as he points at his own neck. “You have, uh, a little something…”

“Oh?” Papyrus reaches up, feels his throat, blinks at the flower he finds underhand. “Oh. Oh! Well, um, hmm. That’s indeed odd. I seem to be, er, growing flowers? And not in the usual way you’d do that?”

A shaky laugh escapes Sans, even though there’s absolutely nothing funny about the situation. His sockets remain dark as grief. “Y-Yeah… Especially since you haven’t _botany_ , huh?”

“Sans!” Papyrus gives him an incredulous glare. “That’s even worse than usual! It is far too early in the morning to be joking around about my sudden body foliage!”

As Papyrus speaks, however, he starts curling his fingers around the stem of the tiny blossom. Fear sharp and sickening jolts through Sans’ entire body when he realizes what Papyrus intends and the skeleton lunges forward.

“Papyrus, _don’t—_!”

Too late. Papyrus gives one quick yank and almost immediately doubles over. Sans grabs him by the shoulders as he drops to his knees, staring at his brother in terror. Papyrus’ eye sockets are blown wide open: gaping holes of shock and bright white pain. And he isn’t breathing, and his gaze looks unfocused and he’s beginning to tremble and he’s _not breathing_ , _no no no no no_.

“Pap, Papyrus, it’s okay! Look at me, look, breathe, just _breathe_ …!”

After the longest minute in Sans’ life, Papyrus finally begins to draw thin, reedy gasps and his gaze refocuses. It flicks back and forth before finding Sans, and instantly he reaches out to grasp his brother’s arms. His jaw moves frantically, still unable to speak. Sans clutches his shoulders tighter, fighting back a flood of relieved tears.

“Yeah, I’m here, Pap, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

“That…” Papyrus’ voice sounds so small. “That... _really_ hurt…”

Sans swallows. “I know,” he murmurs and then, hesitating briefly, reaches down and lifts up his shirt. Papyrus’ eyes widen. “Let’s not try that again, ‘kay, bro?”

The flower at Papyrus’ throat sways as Papyrus nodded vigorously. It’s utterly unharmed.

* * *

Sans has no idea how many times he’s met Frisk, how many times they’ve done this. One page of his notebook is entitled _RESETS_ across the top and is filled with so, so many tally marks: so much that near the bottom the marks get jumbled and confused until his eyes land on numerical calculations furiously scribbled out and a scrawled note that reads, “I DON’T KNOW ANYMORE.” The graphite is imprinted deep and dark into the paper; Sans imagines that he blurrily remembers pressing so hard the point snapped under his frustration and rage.

Helpful. Real helpful.

He has restarted the count on the next page. Sans doubts it makes any difference, but the thought of going through the endless cycle of reloads without keeping track — the thought of becoming wholly lost to the timelines, losing any ability to tell apart which run has ended and which has begun…

Well.

It’s a terrifying thought, to say the least.

On the page after that one, there’s a sketch of the human — probably the result of boredom more than anything else. Striped sweater, messy head of hair, thin shoulders: he’s got them memorized pretty well, down to the last detail.

The only strange part about the drawing is their eyes. For some reason, when Sans drew this, he had apparently decided to leave out that part of their face and scrawl in yawning black holes instead.

It turns the casual sketch into something much more ominous, yet Sans can’t make himself change it.

Sans now sits motionless at his station in Snowdin Forest, having left with Papyrus’ promise to call if the flower acts up in any way, plus a sack lunch of undercooked spaghetti. Dim blue light reflected off the snow sets Sans’ bones aglow. His breath fogs around his teeth as he stares listlessly into the cavern darkness. Furtive movements flit through the black-spine trees. He hears crunching permafrost, the soft sighs of trailed exhalations. Cold air freezes the flower in his ribcage and its petals shiver and fold, perfume muted into a sweetness that lines the inside of his jacket.

Sans curls one hand into a fist tight enough to make his joints ache.

Something’s wrong. Something’s going utterly, terribly, out-of-control _wrong_.

Gritting his teeth to choke back fear — trying to ignore how his flower flutters with each shallow inhale — Sans pulls out his notebook and opens it to an empty page. Carefully he draws himself, detailing every bone and joint and socket as well as his ability allows. Then he adds a flower smack in the middle of his chest, growing atop his sternum.

When he puts down the pencil and looks over the drawing, Sans can’t help but take note of where the flower is.

Ghost sensations ( _the icy feeling of a knife slicing him open_ ), and Sans shudders.

* * *

“Human… Don’t you know how to greet a new pal?”

That’s as far as he gets. That’s all he needs to say. By this point, Frisk doesn’t need any prompting and they turn around and squeeze his hand without hesitation. The rubbery flatulence of a whoopee cushion echoes off the trees.

Sans laughs a little. Frisk smiles a little. And then they continue the cycle, all over again.

Except for one tiny detail.

This time there are flowers _everywhere_.

Sans can’t remember the last time he saw so many colors, a thousand different hues once significantly lacking underground. The kind seen only in salvaged human textbooks and films: ochre and pink from sunsets, vibrant lavender and indigo, rich green that’s not frosted gray like the Snowdin evergreens, swirled purple-black-gold and holographic white from galaxies and stars. But now — now — now they fill the underground. Flowers dot the bodies of several hundred monsters, spangled colors and whiffs of vibrant fragrance. The stale, cramped air of the caverns suddenly fills with a strange and wonderful scent, borne from the new foliage, and Sans imagines it’s what fresh air smells like. What it tastes like.

He might’ve been able to appreciate it more were it not for how scared he feels deep in his marrow. He’s in unknown territory, treading water without any idea how far down the depths go. The flower in his chest feels reminiscent of fingers curled around his bones, eerie enough that he can’t ever forget it’s there.

Not when Frisk defeats and then befriends Papyrus, again. Not when they encounter Undyne and manage to escape her relentless attacks, again. Not when they reach Alphys but then kill Mettaton, and he judges them and they move onto the King and everybody gets what Sans calls a “neutral end” because nobody wins.

The run ends.

And the world loops. Time rewinds. Resets. Again.

And now it’s _two_ flowers he stares down at, blooming from the white of his bones.

* * *

It’s an endless blue sky that stretches overhead, high above Sans’ diminutive figure — blue like water, like pressed flowers, spidering veins and the iron in blood. Clear, clear blue in which he can breathe and drown and utterly lose himself, interrupted only by streaks of white cloud. Below, an equally-infinite field of flowers unfurls into the horizon—

Sans wonders if he’ll become a part of it. If the blue flowers dotted over his numb bones will break them apart. Crumble them to dust and turn him into a pile of ashen loam and indigo blossoms. Maybe he’ll seep into the roots and the roots will go far, far down into the earth’s heart, where he’ll be scorched by magma, fed with subterranean rain, preserved by underground snow. Maybe he’ll breathe through the flowers’ leaves and feel the sunlight through their petals and sprout into a million seeds that the wind scatters like dust particles.

Maybe he’d like that.

Call it morbid, but Sans can think of worse ways to die.

But the problem is that the flowers haven’t accumulated on just him. They’re growing on everyone else, too. Tiny red petals loop gently around Papyrus’ neck, stems sprouting from the gaps between his vertebrae which he tries to view optimistically ( _“I suppose this means I have to start taking care of them! Do you think spaghetti is good for flowers, Sans?”_ ). Undyne complains about the purple, white-edged blooms that emerge all over her scaly skin, vivid as her personality. And the lady behind the door of the Ruins has voiced concern about yellow blossoms growing in delicate clusters from her cheek to her side.

Sans is starting to panic.

At this rate…

“Greetings, Sans.”

He glances up to see the kid — the flower kid — still sitting among the waving blooms, still digging at the soft dirt. Looks like they’ve made some progress: a mound of torn earth and uprooted flowers piles by their knee as they continue pawing at a decently-sized hole. Grit and soil pack the space under their nails in black crescent moons. The human doesn’t even look up when he approaches.

(The golden and white flowers now cover the backs of their hands and peep out from the collar of their sweater. Perhaps without realizing it, Sans touches his chest lightly.)

“Would you like to hear a joke?”

“What’s up with the flowers, kiddo?” Sans pauses, then tucks his hands into his jacket pockets and quirks a brow. “Or...not-kiddo, I guess. That one’s kinda reserved. Not sure we’ve really met, bucko.”

They raise their head at that and grin. It doesn’t reach their poppy-red eyes. “Maybe. Maybe not. It would be rude to spoil a surprise.”

“Reaaaal creepy, buddy,” Sans mutters and their grin only spreads. They gesture for him to sit and Sans complies, too lazy to remain standing for more than seems necessary. The soil is damp and cool beneath his legs; several minutes pass in silence, during which the kid digs and Sans just watches.

Then the kid lifts their gaze to him again, looking curious. They point a dirt-caked finger at their chest. “Are you dying, Sans?” they ask and he snorts loudly.

“Wow, kid, way to be gentle about it.” But he doesn’t answer their question and that doesn’t escape their notice. They smile and the hand falls limp into their lap.

“It’s okay,” they say. It’s somehow not at all reassuring. “I already know you are. I am, too. We’re all dying, really, some just faster than others.”

He eyes them, dots of light in his sockets dimming. “Heh… Don’t get all philosophical on me now, _bud_. I swear I’ll get right up and—” He winks his right eye closed. “— _leaf_.”

The kid stares at him for a second before they burst out laughing. Relief floods his soul at the sight and sound: laughter softens the edges of their face, eases the lines of their thin frame. Makes them look more human, even if only a little bit.

“Haha, that was a good one.”

“Yeah, well.” Sans criss-crosses his legs and angles his smile at them. “How ‘bout we get to the _root_ of the problem? Like who you are and what the heck’s goin’ on.”

They tilt their head but don’t answer straightaway. Instead, the human cups dark earth in their hands and pours it onto the steadily growing mound. The hole they’ve made must be a good foot deep by now. Sans feels sweat bead across his skull as the strange kid burrows their fingers back into the earth. He thinks he smells a faint whiff of copper.

“Actually, here’s a better one, kid. Why the hell are you in my dreams?”

That gets their attention. Red irises flick up and stare into the dark of his eye sockets. As they breathe, the flowers sprouting over ( _out of?_ ) their flesh quiver as if inhaling and exhaling with them; every so often Sans catches a glimpse of pallid skin underneath, blue veins unfurled like roots. Then that empty smile reappears in a slow, slow way that sends chills prickling down Sans’ back.

(He has a brief but vivid flashback to his notebook, to the drawing of Frisk with gaping holes for eyes. The flowers in his chest curl in fear.)

“But Sans, I’m not in your dreams,” the kid say quietly, sweetly. They lift up fistfuls of sweet-smelling earth — but when they open their fingers, a purple flower with long, tapering petals slowly blooms from the soil.

“You’re in mine.”

Their smile doesn’t waver.

“Would you like to hear a joke, Sans?”

* * *

As expected, it’s to another reset that Sans awakes.

* * *

He can’t get rid of the flowers; that’s obvious with how much each attempt hurts. But what he _can_ do is slow them down on both himself and Papyrus. Sure, that means his magic has to be leaking out twenty-four-seven to repress the blossoms’ steady growth. A physically and mentally exhausting feat to say the least — but what else is he supposed to do? Sit back and let them consume him? Ha, maybe in another lifetime, lazy as he is: but after another, then another, then yet another run blue flowers furl across his ribcage ( _along the same diagonal line, dreamed knives and cut bones and liquid red_ ) and his clavicle’s beginning to bud. Wherever their roots spiderweb his bones prickle numbly.

Sans clenches his teeth. He grips the flowers around their stems and focuses. Lets his eye burn in cyan-and-yellow light. Feels the wild rush through his bones: magic flares through his metacarpals to settle tight and squeezing around the flowers, which screech under the cyan fire of his soul. A tepid tingle leaks through his ribs — the first sensation he’s felt there in a while.

One down. One to go.

Papyrus is in his room, and when he reaches out for him Sans feels his brother’s magic give way and embrace the calescent brush of his own, wholly trusting. In his mind, Sans draws a noose around the red flowers and then pulls taut. His soul trembles at the exertion but he grits his teeth until they creak and furrows his brow and concentrates _harder_. Sweat drips from his jaw as he draws the noose tighter, tighter, ever-tighter until at last something shudders and he lets go with a gasp.

And that’s it. Sans has done what he can.

However much that counts for.

* * *

“Heya, kiddo.”

Frisk turns to greet him but then flinches. Dark eyes widen and the snow breaks under their feet when they scramble back with a gasp. Sans blinks and then smiles. His iris flashes blue yellow blue yellow blue yellow, opposite socket snuffed out while magic centers and radiates searing hot from the left eye. Hollow shadows are cast beneath his cheekbones. Frisk squeaks and recoils when Sans approaches; he pauses and rocks backward onto his heels, holding up both hands.

“Easy there, bucko. I’m not gonna hurt ya.” He winks his right socket and grins. The soul-scorching burn of his iris turns it rather sinister. “Don’t worry about it. Bit of a _thorny_ issue, anyway, heheh.”

Frisk swallows as they peer at him, looking concerned and wary.

“Yeah. So. Let’s not _beat around the bush_.” The blaze that’s his eye flares and he fixes them with a more serious expression, perpetual smile no longer reaching the lights in his sockets. “I’ve been thinking you and I need to talk, little buddy. Dunno if you noticed but things have been looking sorta _odd_ around here lately, and… Well…”

He lifts his shoulders in a shrug, then holds out a hand.

“You’ll see. Grillby’s?”

Frisk hesitates for a moment, glancing down at his outstretched phalanges. Sans can get why: he’s going “off script,” after all, with magic bleeding from his skull and an invitation offered far too early. Still, maybe it’s something about the look on his face but eventually Frisk reaches out and takes his hand, albeit hesitantly. Their fingers are warm against his bones, the soft smoothness of their skin not unlike the petals in his ribs. Frisk squeezes lightly and puts on a tentative smile.

They say, “Grillby’s.”

Sans grins.

“Well, c’mon. I know a shortcut.”

He steps back and pulls them forward with him, and in half a second they’ve gone from frigid chill to grease-and-salt warmth. The babble of utensils tinkling and Grillby’s crackling flames washes molten over them as they head up to the counter. Patrons turning to greet Sans freeze upon seeing the heated glare of his magic, staring even after he waves away their shocked and slightly fearful looks. The snow powdering Frisk’s shoes melts so they leave a trail of slushy footprints from the door to the counter.

They both take their seats on the high stools. Sans glances askance at the human.

“Listen, kiddo,” he begins in what he hopes is a gentle tone. But Frisk looks up at him, face grim, before flicking their eyes away. _Guilty_. “I’m not…gonna pretend I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. I mean, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea, y’know? Used to be a pile of babybones myself so I get wanting to cling. I get not wanting to let go. I get… Well. Being scared to let go.”

Frisk doesn’t meet his eyes, picking at the wooden countertop.

“Heh. But like I said, that’s just an _idea_. Anyway I was a scientist, too, didja know that? That was a pretty long time ago, I’ll admit, but my point is I also get wanting to _experiment_.”

Their shoulders cringe minutely at the pointed emphasis placed on that word. Sans reaches for the ketchup bottle but doesn’t take a drink. Instead he just weighs it in his palm and stares unseeing at the label.

“In some twisted way, I guess that can put it into perspective. A sandbox of time and space at your hands, with basically forever for you to explore it? Heh. That’s some opportunity.”

He looks at them sideways and smiles sadly. His eye froths over with magic. _Blue yellow blue yellow blue blue yellow_.

“But pal… Listen. I gotta ask. Do you really _have_ to…? Just… Look at what you have down here. The love, the friendships… Are we not enough for you, kid?”

Frisk’s hand clenches. Their gaze flickers between him and the countertop. There’s the clink of a ceramic plate, a burst of laughter from two tables over, a breathy _whoosh_ of flame and fragrance from the kitchen. The air is colored orange and maroon save for where they are: Sans’ magic has their whole corner of the restaurant flickering cyan-gold. He sighs (the flowers in his bones quiver), then turns so that they’re facing one another.

“Hey. Come on, kiddo. I just want a straight answer for once.”

Frisk worries at their sleeves, forehead creased as they appear to think something over intently. Sans raises a brow and lifts the bottle to his teeth for a long drink. It’s half empty when Frisk finally lifts their head.

“Have to,” they say in that quiet, quiet voice. Sans has to lean over to hear them clearly. “Don’t know how it works. Don’t know everything that can be done. Don’t know everything that can happen. Maybe a good ending. Better ending. Best one for everybody.” They pause and glance away.

“...so I...have to.”

He gives them a long look; his expression is hard to read. “Huh,” he says. Then louder, cooler: “ _Huh_. Well. I’ll, heh, say this, kiddo — you’re terrible at making excuses.”

“For everyone,” they insist but their expression crumples sadly at his words. Frisk continues to pull at their sleeves, tugging at loose threads. “I want to save everyone. Want to know everything that I can do, because I know I can do even better. Need to do even better. Don’t want to miss any chance. I _have_ to.”

Sans stares. Then closes his eyes. Then heaves a huge sigh that does nothing to alleviate the weight on his back. The flowers inside him shiver and fold into tight buds.

He’s drawn so many flowers in his notebook by now.

“No, kid,” he murmurs, tired and bitter and angry and so, so _tired_. Thus the next part emerges a lot sharper than he intends. “I’m sorry, but saying that you’re doing this out of some want to help us? To win us a better ending? That’s a lie and we both know it. The truth is you’re just being selfish, Frisk. You want to hold onto your fun little adventure through the underground, replaying it like a VHS tape or a shitty game. And saying that because you think you can, and because you ‘can,’ you ‘have to’… That’s some real bullshit right there, buddy.”

A blue eye slides over to stare at them scathingly.

“Like you’re justifying wanting to _kill my brother_.”

Their eyes immediately harden with fear and anger, and he almost regrets how harsh that had been.

Almost — because he doesn’t. Not at all.

The blue blossoms are cold in his chest.

Frisk has fallen silent, and after a minute ticks by without another word from them, Sans puts down the half-drained bottle and slides off the stool.

“So this was fun. Order whatever you want, ‘kay, it’s on me. Just tell Grillbz to put it on my—”

“Sans,” they cut him off. “I can’t die.”

Sans stares. Arches his brow. “Heh. Kinda…obvious, don’t’cha think?”

“No. I mean…” Frisk continues with a frown. “I mean I really can’t die. Sometimes I — I feel like I should. Like I…”

They stop. The sentence hangs unfinished and for a moment their eyes are exhausted in more ways than one. For a moment Frisk looks terribly, thoroughly ashamed and Sans tells himself that of course they are, Frisk really is merciful at heart.

(But if they truly remember everyone they’ve killed, on accident and on purpose, then Sans doesn’t know whether to pity them or to _hate them_.)

Hmm. Nevertheless. Sans narrows his eye sockets — the left slitting into a needle of bright blue light — and sinks back onto the stool. “If that’s true, then what’s the deal, bucko? Why don’t you ever, uh…stay dead?”

He winces. That does sound awful, even for him. But Frisk just smiles grimly at Sans before the expression fades.

“I—” They pause and actually peek around, which sets Sans on edge at once. He casts a furtive glance around them as well, but there’s no one except Grillby and the other patrons. “Not sure…but… Always a feeling, right here.”

They point at their gut. At their chest.

Their soul.

“Like someone whispers to keep going — don’t give up. Stay determined.”

_Stay determined._

The way those words roll off their tongue makes it sound as though Frisk is very familiar with them. Carved into their mind, their heart and will and blood-red soul. Sans props his elbow on the counter and rests his head in his palm, thinking.

“You’re telling me there’s an outlier, kid? Someone or something aside from you messin’ with time and space?”

“Well…” Frisk’s forehead creases as they clutch the front of their sweater. “Maybe? I’m not sure.”

A light scoff of frustration escapes through Sans’ teeth and his eye sockets close, extinguishing the flame of his iris. Laughter blissfully unaware floats around them, scented basil and salt. Sans leans his head against his hand and sits in silence for a long while, Frisk watching him anxiously.

He exhales in a slow gust. Lifts his head, opens his eyes. The restaurant is lit blue again.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Thanks, kid.”

He doesn’t look at them when he speaks. Frisk presses their lips together and bows their head, brown fringe falling over their eyes. They remain in that position as Sans gets up to leave.

But when he starts to make his way towards the exit, a thought tugs him back: “Hey, Frisk?”

No response.

“One question — can you promise me that you’ll stop? That when everything is over and you’ve found what you’re looking for, there won’t be any more resets?”

They lift their head. Under the muss of bangs, Sans can see heavy eyelids the bruised color of crushed petals.

No response.

Sans levels them with an indecipherable look, and after a moment, he chuckles. It’s a tight sound.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought. But that’s okay, you don’t have to make me any promises.” The cut edges of his teeth gleam beneath the flashes of his magic. “I know you’re only human, after all.”

* * *

It’s an endless red sky that stretches overhead.

Red like dusk.

Red like seeping veins.

Red like determination, the iron in a soul.

Red like poppies — or eyes the same color, round and blank and coupled with a smile just as glassy.

Red like the blood staining their fingertips, oozing from nails cracked open and blackened with soil. Sans winces, hollows dark under his sockets as he watches the flower kid dig and dig and keep digging. Beside them tower four mounds of packed soil and ripped flowers, sentries around an enlarged pit. The world has dimmed so that golden and white flowers turn dark ochre and bloodstain-pink; the human’s almost engulfed in them, the blossoms sprouting from their flesh glowing like spirits in the twilight.

Their gaze flicks up to him once. Pieces of a scarlet sky.

“Greetings, Sans,” they say in a high, sweet voice. “Would you like to hear a joke?”

“Fuck, bud,” he murmurs. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

The kid looks down at their blooming hands and then cocks their head as though just noticing the broken, bleeding fingernails. Dark blood mingles with the grime coating their fingers, and Sans recoils in disgust when the kid leans down and sucks away the clay under their cuticles, spitting it out onto the ground. Seeing that, their frozen smile splits wider and dimples rosy cheeks.

“I have no idea,” they say and then giggle. “I can’t feel a thing.”

Sans stares, one hand curled into a claw over his sternum, and their red gaze slides down to the hole again. It appears barely large enough for someone perhaps Frisk’s size to lay down outstretched. Under the foul sky it yawns black and seemingly bottomless. He shudders and looks away from the abyss.

“You buryin’ a body, not-kiddo?” he asks in a low tone and they laugh.

“Are you dying, Sans?” they reply, turning that smile up at him. He imagines a ticklish crawl in his ribcage upon noticing how gold and white blossoms sprout out of their hair and eat away at their forehead. Creeping towards their sky-red eyes, petals sharp as eager teeth.

“Are you scared of dying?”

A brisk wind glides cool fingers along his bones. The flower fields rustle with snickering voices. He takes a step back. “Why are you asking?”

“Because you don’t need to be.” The kid’s red eyes roll upwards and they smile at the billowing, breathing sky. “Because we’ll just go back. Because you won’t remember. Because as it is, nothing is permanent and so there’s simply no point in fear. Why be scared to die when even death doesn’t last long? When no matter how much things go wrong — no matter how _corrupted_ and _twisted_ and _messed up beyond belief_ — the end result is the same. I daresay that is something Frisk knows _quite_ well.”

They pause. Tilt their head and narrow their eyes minutely. “Hey. Have you ever noticed, Sans? How dead, dried flowers smell _so much sweeter_ compared to living ones?” A high-pitched laugh. “Isn’t that interesting?”

Sans takes another step away. His grin is strained, the light in his left eye focused and searing. Even here, his magic’s hard at work cauterizing the flora in his chest. He takes a deep breath that flutters blue flowers under his fingers and says, “Buddy, there’d better be a point to all of this. I never was the sorta guy for small talk. In fact—” He winks his right socket shut. “— looks like the perfect _thyme_ for a couple questions I got.”

Rosy cheeks dimple again. That smile never wavers, never fades, a physical porcelain mask. “Try me.”

“I think we oughta start off with the one you didn’t answer last time: who are you?” A thought occurs, and his sockets narrow. “Are you the one pushing the kid on? Telling them to stay determined and reset?”

“Ah, well.” They narrow their eyes and smirk as though knowing something he doesn’t. “In truth, I would be lying if I said no. But I’d also be lying if I said yes. Haha, an interesting state of affairs we find ourselves in, don’t you think?”

“It’d be even better—” Sans cracks a grin shadowed by the burn of his iris. “— if you cut the _shit_ and tell me what I want to know.”

The human laughs loudly, and the sound bounces hollow around the expanse of a blood-red sky. Their hands fall limp from their lap and they pitch themselves forward; Sans narrows his eye sockets when they sway on their knees, then slowly stagger upright onto numbed legs.

Their shorts are caked with clay and grass stains. Sans can see calves thin and pale and scratched under a mass of cloying-fragrant flowers. The kid angles their smile at him from beneath lank, tangled hair.

“Sans,” they croon. “Would you like to hear a joke?”

They stand at the edge of the hole they’ve carved into the earth. All it takes is one push off their heels and they’re plunging in.

Sans darts forward as they plummet backwards into the unending darkness. The black hole swallows them up without a sound and he pitches himself at the edge, staring with sockets shocked wide into the abyss. Air damp and cool as a mildewed well emits up from the hole, from which Sans hears nothing but cavernous silence. As if there’s no bottom at all.

_They tell a joke about a kid who ate a pie with their bare hands._

Except.

Sans is staring down into the hole and the kid is staring back, doll-like smile right in his face because the hole is only about six feet deep and they can reach out and grab the hood of his jacket and _it’s a grave, it’s a grave_ , they really were digging a grave oh _fuck_ —

_They tell a joke about two kids who played in a muddy flower garden._

— and the kid opens their mouth and laughs and their breath wafts as musty on his face as air from a coffin, the putrid stench of decay and embalming spices and raw earth fills up the inside of his skull and they _keep laughing_ —

_They tell a joke about a kid who slept in the soil._

— and the crimson sky swallows their laughter and spits it back down distorted and swelling, and Sans gazes in horror as the sweet flowers growing from their body molder into rot, their flesh blackens and drops away, and their laughter grows shriller until he can’t tell if they’re sobbing or screaming instead—

But then there’s another, unfamiliar voice in his ears, inside his skull, and it laughs with a dissonant noise that buzzes into static as the kid peers up at him. Their body bleeds black into the earthen grave, bones gleaming ash and snow in the dusk. The human looks up and smiles, teeth exposed through decaying cheeks, and a stem loops around the line of their collarbone.

“Are you scared of dying, Sans?”

It’s his own voice that asks, and when Sans blinks, it’s himself he sees rotting apart in that hole. Gaping, empty sockets stare back and new green buds begin to push up from the white of his own ribs.

“Are you scared?”

Someone shoves him from behind and with a shout, Sans plunges into the dark of the grave. But he never hits the bottom because he’s _already_ lying there dying and dead and peering up at a determination-red sky with something cold and hard cushioning his resting place. An invisible knife twists in his chest, and with a gust of sickly sweet fragrance, purple flowers with long, tapering petals bloom from the soil of his bones.

Under his head he hears a hollow rattle; the kid’s voice whispers against his skull as something rustles within his right eye socket. Like an unfurling bloom.

“What’s the point, Sans?”

The roiling clouds shriek with mirth as though that’s the best joke they’ve ever heard.

* * *

Sans wakes up to someone screaming.

Immediately his reaction is to lurch out of bed, kicking free from his tangled sheets and teleporting downstairs in bursts. “Papyrus?!” he shouts and his eye trails neon fire as he races from room to room, searching for his brother. It feels as if his soul’s leapt up to the vicinity of his mouth and the flowers are shriveling, leaching numb ribs. The house is cold.

“Papyrus, _where are you_?!” he yells but then stops when he hears his brother’s voice outside: “Sans, here, I am out here!”

Relief floods his soul as he phases out of the house, going from empty cold to eyelash-freezing iciness — but it dies fast. A small crowd has gathered near Grillby’s and everyone wears a look of fear; in the center Sans can just make out Papyrus’ anxious face trying to put on a reassuring smile. It’s not working out so great.

“Sans!” Papyrus cries and elbows his way through the crowd as Sans jogs up to them. The tiny red blossoms under his scarf cushion his throat. “S-Sans, we have to call Undyne or Dr. Alphys! I don’t know for sure but I think one of the local kids has...has ‘fallen down,’ we need to get help right away!”

“‘Fallen down’?” Sans feels his ribs bottom out at that. “No, no, that can’t be — here, let me, let me see them, maybe I can—!”

“Sans!” Papyrus protests but Sans slips under his arm and rushes over to where the Snowdin residents are flocking. Quiet, horrified whispers float to his ears when he nears but one voice stands out above the rest.

“No, please, no!” cries a woman in a tone of near-hysterical horror. “Cinnamon, please, wake up, _please_!”

“Move, let me—” Sans shoves past a tall bear monster and his eye casts flashing cyan light over the scene. Grillby lifts his head upon Sans’ arrival; the orange-red-gold glow of his flames clashes with Sans’ bright magic. Bright cattleya orchids bud over his wrists.

A violent tremble racks Sans' entire soul and he stumbles back in horror.

“ _No_ …”

The woman — a rabbit monster who now kneels in the snow, sobbing against Grillby — clutches at a tiny figure. “Please, you’re scaring me, Cinnamon!” she begs, tears matting the fur of her face. “Wake up, wake up!”

The little mound in the snow remains still and silent. Sans’ chest begins to heave as he stares with everyone else at the baby rabbit: little more than a shuddering pile of snowy white fur that’s been consumed by daisies. He can just make out half-lidded, bead-black eyes that flicker once, twice.

And then Sans blinks and dust is spreading over the snow and the rabbit woman is _screaming_.

No.

“No. No, no, this can’t be…” His legs threaten to give out under him and Sans lifts trembling hands to his eye sockets. “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, _fuck_ —”

“Sans!” he hears Papyrus cry, but it’s too late. Sans has turned and dashed away from his brother, from the crowd, from the first monster to die from the insidious flowers.

This isn’t supposed to happen.

This isn’t supposed to—

Once he’s far away enough, Sans stops and teleports to the door of the Ruins, where he collapses in front of the sentry station. Shaking and breathing hard, he pulls out a spare piece of paper from his station and fumbles to focus, to write, to record what’s happening even as his head reels wildly.

But then he stops.

Wait.

Something isn’t—

He can feel the flowers blooming from his ribs still there, still shivering with every breath he takes: but something’s changed. Sans’ hands tremble as he worries the hem of his shirt, dreading what he’ll find underneath.

Something isn’t right.

_“Are you scared?”_

Sans pulls his shirt up, and sky-colored flowers dark with rot drop from his chest into the snow.

He stares with swelling horror at the flowers budding in their place, eating away the blue blossoms and taking root in his numb bones instead.

Purple flowers with long, tapering petals.

_“Are you scared?”_

Oh, yes. Yes.

Sans has never been more terrified.

* * *

The tension between Sans and Frisk this reset is particularly bad: when they meet up and Frisk turns to shake his hand, offering a hesitant smile, he grins right back and says, “Hey, kiddo. Found anything _new_ yet?”

That instantly wipes the smile off their face and they look aside, hurt and maybe more than a little angry, too. Sans can’t blame them.

Oh, wait.

Yes he can.

The resets are seeping, bleeding, multicolor flowers poking holes in time and space with their hungry roots. The baby rabbit doesn’t come back, a fact that has him staring at his notebook — at the last frantically scrawled note — in numb dread. After who knows how long time has been skipping back, any trace of permanence seems otherworldly, but _this_? This is just _sick_. Sans lifts his head and watches the rabbit woman go on her daily walk with a dull look in her eyes. She keeps her gaze down at the ground, whole body quivering, and continuously glances around as if expecting someone to appear. Nobody approaches her; nobody dares try to talk to her for long. Even the monster who often makes skeptical comments is grimly silent.

(Sans didn’t notice before but she also has daisies sprouting from her fur, dotting the spaces between her fingers and along the line of her jaw. His teeth grit and he turns away.)

“Heya, Pap.”

“Oh, hi, Sans!” His brother looks up from the puzzle he’s reconfigurating and smiles, though the unease in his eye sockets lingers. But it vanishes when Papyrus seems to realize something and then he scowls at the shorter skeleton. “Hold on a minute, Sans, why on earth aren’t you at your post?! Argh, you lazybones, you’re skipping out on your duties again!”

Sans tries to grin and not stare at the increased number of flowers around Papyrus’ neck. Out of instinct his eye flares a fresh rush of magic, and a red blossom quivers and drops a petal. “Heheh… You know me.”

“I certainly do!” Papyrus throws his hands up into the air, exasperated. “Goodness gracious, Sans, what am I ever going to do with you? Don’t tell me you abandoned your post just to get more of that horrific grease from Grillby!”

“Nah… Nah.” Sans shrugs. Fidgets. Glances away. “I just...wanted to see how you were doing. I, uh, guess…”

“Oh.”

Papyrus doesn’t quite seem to know what to make of that. The two brothers stand there for a moment: Sans unusually fascinated by the snowy ground, fingers clutching the flowers sprung from his chest, Papyrus staring at _him_ with a thoughtful frown. It’s a while before either of them speak up again.

“Are you all right, brother?” asks Papyrus in a very gentle tone. Sans cringes at the sound of it.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, bro.” Sans looks up and a tense grin crosses his face. “I’m just, heh, y’know, _bone-tired_. That’s all. I’ll get over it.”

“Ugh, _Sans!_ ” Papyrus rolls his eyes but then fixes his brother with a concerned look. “Well, if that’s the case, then…” His sockets light up. “I believe I have just the remedy!”

“Huh? What’cha—” Sans lets out a yelp as Papyrus swoops him up to cradle the shorter skeleton against his shoulder like a child. For a moment he’s totally stunned, then gives a shaky laugh. “H-Hey, Pap, c’mon. This is too much.”

“No, no, I should think it’s exactly what you need!” Papyrus chides in turn. Already he’s setting off, boots tramping through the snow, carrying them deeper into the underground forest. “And what you need is a good long walk through the cold with the greatest of Royal Guards, hooting with said Guard about how likewise great you are!”

“Aw, shucks, Papyrus,” Sans chuckles. “Thanks.”

“Not at all!” Then he pauses. “...Er… Sans?”

“Yeah?”

The red flowers beneath Papyrus’ scarf are soft under Sans’ cheek; they smell nice, a gentle fragrance that brings to mind the grainy heart of a tree. Papyrus carefully adjusts his hold on Sans and picks his words with equal caution: “You’re worried about them, aren’t you?”

Sans stiffens. “‘Them’...?”

“The flowers! The…” Papyrus shifts and lifts his hand to pull his scarf down, as if Sans doesn’t have a good enough view of the damned plants already. “ _These_. Sans, I — I know that you don’t tell me a lot of things. That you keep many secrets from me. Not that I’m angry about it, mind you…! I trust that if there’s something weighing heavily on your mind, you will share it with me. I trust you to trust me. After all, I am very great! There’s no problem the Great Papyrus will refuse to solve for his loved ones, nyeh-heh!”

Brief silence greets his statement. “Heh. Yeah. That…That means a lot, Pap.”

“So, Sans,” Papyrus says a bit quieter. “Please don’t worry. I will not—”

Pause.

Deep breath.

“I will not leave you, all right? Promise!”

Sans stares, his eye ablaze with cyan-yellow. There’s a constricting feeling around his chest and for once he doesn’t think it’s from his flowers, old or new. Feeling a conflicted mix of love and crippling despair, he wraps his arms around Papyrus’ overgrown neck and buries his face in that scarf. It smells like flowers, detergent, and tomato sauce. Like home.

“Okay,” he manages to say. “Sure, Papyrus.”

“Don’t say that, Sans,” Papyrus scolds, though he does squeeze Sans back. “Don’t say that like you don’t believe me.”

There’s a sting behind Sans’ eye sockets. He closes them. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

The brothers hold each other for a very long time. The fragrance of wildflowers spills into the frigid air, cradling them too.

* * *

Another neutral ending.

Following and watching the human, Sans looks on as they kill several of the aquatic monsters in Waterfall, then Undyne when she chases them into Hotland. He stands over Undyne’s corpse as she disintegrates: ashy glop and striking purple blooms.

Time winds back. Tally mark.

Another neutral ending.

Undyne lives. Half the underground doesn’t. Flowers and gray dust scatter like mangled funeral bouquets. Some won’t come back in the next run, while others may return as shadows of their former selves.

Time winds back. Tally mark.

Another neutral ending.

Sans finds a golden flower slit apart in a dark place he can’t remember. Star-white blossoms wilt around it and choke its stem like weeds.

Time winds back. Tally mark.

Another neutral ending.

 _Corruption_. Waterfall’s echo flowers speak in distorted, warped voices; several times Sans thinks he spots a child in a striped sweater running through the dark. He calls out once, and they look back for him to see white fur and fangs — and familiar, star-shaped flowers.

Rewind. Tally mark. Corruption.

Waterfall is silent. Completely silent. Not only have the echo flowers lost their voices, they swallow any noise around them. Sans flees their suffocating quiet and in the next run they’re whispering again.

Rewind. Tally mark. Corruption.

Funny: Sans distinctly remembers the way to Hotland being much further. One step from his sentry post in that direction, and he’s there. Huh.

~~Rewind. Tally mark. Corruption.~~

~~Sans stares. A familiar figure smiles back.~~

~~Pale disc-shaped flowers bloom within his hollow hands.~~

~~“Gaster?”~~

Rewind. Tally mark. Corruption.

Papyrus wears a crown. It’s too heavy for him. Sans searches for a gray door but wakes up behind that of the Ruins. He has time to grin at a “bonely” joke in someone’s diary before the world resets.

* * *

Rewind. Tally mark.

Neutral ending.

_Papyrus is dead._

Before Frisk leaves, they glimpse into the trees with an apologetic look, but Sans just laughs and laughs at the irony.

* * *

And time winds back.

Back and back and back. The notebook pages are filled.

Sans’ right eye aches. His left burns dry and leaves a dull pain throbbing behind his sockets. In spite of the constant burn of his magic, new buds germinate along his clavicle and creep up into the underside of his jaw. When he wakes up to find Papyrus downstairs _whole_ and _safe_ and _alive_ , he clings to his brother and gives no response to Papyrus’ worried questions. By now red petals froth from the skeleton’s neck, cupping his mandible. Shudders rack Sans’ soul, and he wonders again if the extra exertion drains at his one point of health.

If despite everything, they’re all going to die anyway.

Then in that same run, it finally happens — the left eye socket cracks open, overheated from too much magic. Sans stands hunched in the bathroom where blue-yellow light gushes and glares off the mirror. One hand clutches the splintered bone fragment, and Sans stares at his reflection, at the yawning hole of his eye. He can feel magic leak through, liquid fire seeping and scorching jagged edges of ossein; his iris flickers cyan within his skull like a candle-flame.

(Tiny letters in the corner of one page:  _There’s no point._ )

A green bud peeks over the edge of his right socket. He’s so tired.

* * *

There’s no sky overhead.

There’s nothing but absolute darkness.

Sans can’t breathe.

His body is cramped, paralyzed, bones creaking gently from a weight he cannot see. He lies on top of hard brittle objects that poke uncomfortably at his spine like old bones and he groans.

Teeth rattle next to his ear as the flower kid’s voice asks, “ _Why was I brought back to life?_ ”

Fear rushes frigid through his bones.

A voice filled with static speaks from the dark, but it reverberates through his skull too loudly and purple flowers in his chest coil and _shriek_. Numbed ribs heave as he struggles to take in air.

“ _What is the purpose of my reincarnation?_ ”

His hands rest palm-up; he clenches his fingers and they dig into packed earth. He goes rigid: no, no, wait, _no_ , _he can’t be_ —

“ _You’ll show me…?_ ”

His soul is in his mouth. The closed space seems to press in on him, squeezing and packing him as if into a coffin, _no_ , no, _don’t_ freak out, stay calm, stay—

“ _All right then._ ”

Sans arches up against the wall of soil he can now feel pushing down against him and opens a mouthful of earth to choke, to scream, twisting his fingers into the dirt above his hands. His cracked eye socket stings. The bones under him giggle.

“ _I look forward to seeing what you have in mind._ ”

Dark roots spider from his bones, from the soil filling his hollow right eye. They creep upwards and somehow Sans knows exactly when they burst through to the air.

( _Golden flowers and darkness and a spot of sunlight from an opening far, far above._ )

His flowers spread petals the hue of bruises and lavender, scent cloying as blood. The darkness resounds with contorted laughter.

And Sans’ soul twists when he sees silver flash and a knife stabs the earth right for him.

His muffled screams turn hysterical and he writhes and gags on bitter earth, meanwhile the knife inches closer to him, puncturing deeper with each thrust. The roots catch and tear on the blade, and blinding agony shoots through Sans’ skull like a bullet. He can’t breathe. He can’t _breathe_.

The blade rips across Sans’ ribs in a familiar line and then darkness drags him underwater.

* * *

Sans wakes up drenched in sweat. His body rattles with chills and when he sits up, a draft seeping in through the window freezes the damp on his bones and injects the cold deep into his marrow. Salt tinges the saccharine scent of his flowers; blue light washes the bedroom in bright shadow. Sans gulps air and holds himself, metacarpals trembling.

Room. Space. He can breathe. Yet the memory of soil suffocating him, pressing against his face and trickling into his cracked socket lurches him off the old mattress and he paces on shaky legs. In, out. It was a dream. Just a dream.

_Just the worst nightmare he’s had in a while._

Papyrus is calling.

When Sans trudges downstairs in a worn T-shirt and his last pair of clean sweatpants, Papyrus takes one look at him and frowns. “Sans?” he says, covering a simmering pot on the stove and turning. Sans blinks and suddenly he’s outside with snow and mist painting his vision white. The only color is a red scarf billowing as the wind sweeps dust and crumbled flowers around his feet.

A violent shiver makes his bones rattle. And then Papyrus is _there_ , right there in front of him, and his hands are on his shoulders and the flowers around his neck have grown up to his cheeks now, _no no no it’s not working_.

“Sans! Are you all right?!”

Yes. No. He doesn’t know. All Sans can do is wrap his arms around Papyrus’ flowering neck and clutch him tight. His mind whirls and his broken eye bleeds blue and yellow.

A new run. A new reset. The human will be coming soon.

“I gotta go,” he says in a tremulous voice. “I need to get to the Ruins _now_.”

“Sans,” Papyrus whispers fearfully. “Your eye.”

“Yeah.” He can see it — or _not_ see it, rather. A purple flower springs from his right socket so that side of his vision blurs. It fills his skull with sweetness. “I know.”

“But—”

“Not now, Papyrus.” Sans lets go and steps back, grin strained. “I’ve gotta go. Love you, bro.”

“I love you, too, Sans,” Papyrus replies, too bewildered to do more than stare sadly at his brother. Sans gives him a tight smile, steps back—

— and turns around to face the door of the Ruins.

The air crackles with frost, and Sans’ breath is a streak of white in the cave darkness. It’s so quiet, there’s nothing but the shrill echo of air whistling through the trees. The door looms, an ominous silence caged within.

( _Cavernous silence like a grave with no bottom—)_

Sans stares at the Delta Rune burned black onto the door. His teeth clench tight and the cold phalanges of his hand curl around the flowers at his chest, fingertips digging into spaces between the stems. When did he start doing that? Bad habit to have.

Laughter echoes in his skull.

Are those footsteps?

Sans looks up, socket lights pinpricked at the clunk of an unlatched lock. With infinite slowness, the heavy doors open with a creaking groan as though in pain, and a shadow steps through. Coldness rests on the small of Sans’ back like a hand and his magic flares, casting a blue-yellow strobe over the snow.

Striped sweater, messy head of hair, thin shoulders. He can just see the blade of a toy knife in one hand.

“Frisk?”

They pause. It’s impossible to see their eyes in the dimness. A close-lipped smile, a soft snicker.

“Guess again.”

There’s something off about their voice — and something unnervingly familiar. The purple flowers crawl under his fingers and Sans takes half a step back, wary and admittedly afraid. He says, slowly:

“Is that you, flower kid?”

A twitch of the hand, and the human tilts their head so that he catches a glimpse of brilliant red. But it vanishes fast as a snuffed candle and then the kid lifts their head, smiles, and fully opens their eyes at last.

Voids.

Gaping holes.

_Black roses._

Sans stops breathing, and the human grins so wide their whole face seems to split apart.

“ _Guess again_.”

* * *

There’s a certain page in Sans’ lab notebook he consults often: it’s one of the last ten or so, inscribed with a list to which he adds or takes off entries over the runs. It’s not as long as some others, definitely not filling up the paper the way the tallies do but lengthy nonetheless. Across the top he has entitled the list simply “WHY”.

As in, why the human does what they do.

Various motivations have been scribbled down, everything from “curiosity” (circled as it’s the most probable) to “sadistic pleasure” (a dot beside it like another Sans had wanted to make a comment). The list was started way, way back when he didn’t know Frisk as well as he should have — when they were nothing but _the anomaly_ to him — and so quite a few entries have been crossed off; he knows for sure that Frisk doesn’t reset out of “spite,” and they certainly don’t harbor any “hatred” towards the monsters. If anything, it’s out of love that they continue to trap everyone in an ceaseless loop.

Twisted and unstable as it is.

(He’d written that down long ago, “ _love_ ,” but had scrawled it off after his brother died. Now he writes it again but can’t help the bitterness in his mouth when he does.)

But this…

This _thing_.

It’s not love that spurs them, it’s LOVE.

And Sans returns to an earlier entry on the list and underlines it with red pen: “ _Frisk isn’t doing this because they want to._ ”

Then he flips to the drawing of the human with blank eyes and rewrites that in small letters by the sketch.

In a surge of panic Sans had attacked the parasite, draconic skulls gushing white-hot energy and turning them into a charred black mess. But of course time rewound and the demon in human form re-emerged in giggling fits; their laughter buzzes painfully like static needles against his temples. All Sans got for the trouble was a new flower in his right eye and a larger hole of a socket from the magical exertion.

So instead he grins huge and hateful and watches the human progress. The tapered flowers in his bones quiver, filling his throat with sickly sweet fragrance. Whatever’s inhabiting Frisk’s body, it moves through the underground with unnerving familiarity. As though it knows every path by heart. The idea ices over Sans’ soul: has this thing always been there, watching them through Frisk’s eyes? Is the child still alive, and are they witnessing the massacre wreaked by their own hands?

 _Do they even care_ , he wonders once before violently shoving the thought aside.

Sans knows the flower kid is there, however, because sometimes the human form pauses and a glimmer of red breaks through the black gulfs of their eyes. It’s actually because of that kid that he clings to hope; they’re the last shred of humanity he can see in the creature that used to be Frisk. Red flickers in recognition when they see him, the Snowdin puzzles, Papyrus. But to his horror he thinks it fades faster each time Frisk’s eyes revert back to empty pits — and each time the flower kid stares longer at the dust on their fingers and torso, lips twisted into a crooked smile.

The human dies a few times, some lucky monster able to land a hit or two. But the satisfaction’s always short-lived because afterwards Sans finds himself back at the Ruins, staring into a cold smile and gaping eyes like his own. Worse is how he often sways on his feet. His temples pound, exhaustion courses through his marrow as his soul drains. The gaping crack that’s his left socket feels so hot he nearly burns his hand when he touches it, and lavender petals froth out of the right over his cheekbone.

“Are you all right, Sans?” comes Papyrus’ voice, rough with concern. A hand rests on his shoulder, jolting him out of his thoughts. “Do you need a break?”

“I-It’s fine. Don’t worry.” Sans turns to give his brother a faint smile. Papyrus gives his shoulder a light squeeze that stabs through Sans’ chest. The red blooms nearly cover the entirety of Papyrus’ head; Sans has stopped being able to see his throat some timelines back. In response his magic flares, and Sans nearly drops to his knees.

“Sans!” Papyrus cries, catching him by the elbow. His sockets are wide and worried. “You need to rest!”

“I’m good,” he says, although his vision wavers so that shadows between the trees seem to flicker and skip. Or maybe they are: shapes and voices dance along the edges of Sans’ senses, making him unsure of nearly everything he sees. “How about you, Pap? You, uh… You okay?”

“Me?” Papyrus hesitates — just for a second — before straightening with a broad smile. “You know I am perfectly well, brother! I’ll admit I’ve been a little…worried about how many people have needed to go on vacation. But then I suppose it is necessary, considering the toll _it_ has taken.”

“Vacation…?” Oh. Right. That was Sans’ explanation for why some of the monsters dusted by Frisk/the thing possessing them haven’t returned. He can’t bear to tell Papyrus the truth about their flowers, their ( _erasure from existence_ ) deaths, no matter what his brother’s already suspecting.

But then…

Sans looks at the flowers sprouting from Papyrus’ neck and feels sick. There’s no way Papyrus doesn’t know, either.

“You’re telling me the truth, right, Pap? You don’t feel…I don’t know, nauseous or anything?”

Papyrus fidgets, then swallows and glances away, holding his scarf with one hand. “Well… They don’t _hurt_ …”

“Pap.”

“All right, all right. They make me feel dizzy sometimes. All cold and tingly and odd. And I seem to forget things very often now. For example, when I went for my morning jog today in the forest, I could have sworn that the path was _much_ shorter! Yet it seemed to go on and on and on—”

Sans keeps quiet. By this point there’s so little time left, he can feel it in his bones. If he doesn’t hurry, Frisk will keep killing and resetting and dragging them back through time until the flowers consume his brother entirely. Until Sans is left standing in the snow, red fabric in his hands and red petals around his feet.

And then?

And then what?

What happens after that — after Papyrus is gone for good?

No last chance. No going back. No rewind where he’ll see his brother ever again. Papyrus dead and dusted and Sans left with black regret cutting him wide open. What then?

Then…

He can abandon the world.

He can let it burn.

He can crawl into bed and wait for time to grind to a halt.

He can let the flowers choke him, break him and turn him into a blooming cairn.

He can sleep out the rest of time until oblivion finally comes.

He can finally do _nothing_.

_“What’s the point, Sans?”_

But no.

No.

Sans can't live with himself if he lets that happen.

The flowers in his eye shrill when he looks up at Papyrus again.

* * *

Golden light pours molten through floor-to-ceiling windows to wash the corridor in shadows and splendor. Paned glass cut in repeating patterns: the Delta Rune’s soaring wings, globe-like sphere, equilateral triangles. Like sentries, marble pillars rise along the perimeter and Frisk’s footsteps resound ominously off the arched walls as they approach. It’s a beautiful day outside.

The air is fragrant with flowers and the powdery sweetness of dust. Distantly they can hear chirping, not even that far away but blocked by more than one powerful barrier. Sometimes tiny dark shapes even flit over the glass windows, hinting at the fauna just outside the caves. Birds are singing.

Sans smiles, sockets rimmed dark with fresh grief. The corridor’s dim light turns him into a half-illuminated silhouette. The thing inside Frisk grins right back. A ray of sun glints off their blade — which is real this time, forged from silvery-red steel and clean of the gray covering Frisk’s hands — and a bud opens, stretching out of Sans’ eye and over his brow to the stale breeze. Flowers are blooming.

_On days like these…_

The human steps forward.

_Kids like you…_

Sans uncurls his hand from his chest and lets it drop by his side. His eye blazes.

 _Should be burning in_ hell.

Sans’ lab notebook is safely stored in his pocket, but he depends mainly on the expressions that flicker across the kid’s face. Take, for example, their look of agony when skull demons burn them alive. Then Sans blinks and they’ve both flashed back to the Ruins. The human’s expression is one of shock and rage: not about the skulls (the parasite’s seen them before, thanks to his carelessness) but about the fact that he went first, _how dare he_. Sans notes with a hint of satisfaction how a muscle ripples in their jaw as they traverse through the underground to try again. No luck. Again. Nope. Again. Not happening.

The corridor warps around them each glitching reset — sometimes longer, shorter, missing pillars, extra pillars. At one point Sans leaves Frisk hanging, their void-eyes blank and furious as he stares down the hall in fascination. There’s no end in sight, a physical droste effect with the windows and pillars and floor repeating forever.

~~Déjà-vu: a figure in the corner of Sans’ eye socket. Hollow hands signing a message he can’t make out. The white flowers have spread.~~

“So.” Sans turns and smiles. “ _Flower_ you holdin’ up, kiddo?”

Their enraged scream cuts off when a bone spears through their stomach.

Again.

Believe it or not, however, Sans doesn’t stop talking to them. The probability that he’ll get lucky and Frisk will die and stay dead is so very low; that means his best chance would be somehow getting through to them. After all, they’re still there, aren’t they? Deep down in the body, Frisk can see the horror in which their actions have resulted? Deep down, Frisk can still change their mind?

He tells them that. He says all that and more as the fight drags on and on over four, five, six runs. Sans begs, bargains, threatens. He probably repeats a couple things several times since he has no opportunity to write them down in the notebook to remember. Nonetheless, nothing happens.

(— _and he’s trying not to panic, trying to do everything he can because there’s not much time, so little time before the flowers end up being too much_ —)

He’ll do anything to make them stop.

And then after seven, eight, nine runs, they stop.

Frisk stops.

In the middle of the fight they simply freeze in their tracks as if the strings moving them have been cut abruptly. Startled, Sans peers at them with narrowed sockets but can’t make out their eyes under the shadow of long brown fringe.

Tentatively, he calls, “Frisk?”

A shudder runs through their whole body. Thin fingers clutch the real knife so tightly their whole hand trembles. As though moving suddenly takes extra effort, the human raises their head just enough that Sans can glimpse a peek of their eyes. His flowers shiver.

Eyelids the color of bruised petals.

Oh, thank goodness. Finally.

“Frisk.”

“ _Sans_.” Their voice is hoarse, trembling with unshed tears — tears of what? Sadness? Fear? Remorse? They sniffle. “I’m sorry.”

The burned, broken hole of his eye dims to black. Frisk coughs and drops their gaze, hunching over. They’re crying in earnest now. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry—”

“If you’re really sorry…”

A splintered bone in his hand.

“…you’d do the _right thing_.”

* * *

_If we’re really friends, you won’t come back._

* * *

But they do.

Of course they do.

This time the world’s corrupted itself so that scarlet light pours into the corridor, not gold.

The human stands before him as a crimson-edged shadow, black craters for eyes once more, and Sans touches his blooming socket and chuckles. Why did he expect anything different?

“I guess that means we never really _were_ friends, huh?”

Time’s almost out. In the next reset the underground will feel so empty — and maybe soon after that it will _be_ empty. The bottom half of the hourglass is nearly full.

This run he doesn’t bother with the pleas, the negotiations. It’s clear now that Frisk is in there, but whether they can’t or won’t stop the resets doesn’t even matter anymore. They’re still here. Or at least, the parasite piloting their body is. Every attempt to communicate with it goes nowhere, meaning Sans has no choice but to force it to give up once and for all.

Just one problem with that: with every run they’ve gotten further in the fight. And so now they manage to last really, really far.

By the time Sans has to break out his penultimate special attack, sweat beads the curve of his skull and the flowers springing from his eye have folded into tight buds. His soul trembles violently from the exertion; the skeleton would love nothing more than to collapse right then and there and sleep for the rest of his life.

Instead he channels spilled magic into a wave of unhinged-jaw skulls and fires. When the human emerges unscathed, his iris broils hot and he seizes their soul in a flash of blue.

Wall. Ceiling. Pillar. Wall. Floor. Wall. Pillar.

Sans doesn’t stop even upon the nauseating snaps that reach his ears. Only exhaustion pure and unadulterated makes his magic flicker, his entire frame sag. His eye blinks out and the flowers of his socket wilt with a timorous exhale. The human’s body slides out of his magical grasp and falls in a heap onto the tile floor.

Is it…

Is it over?

Is he done?

Movement.

Sans glances up to see the human twitch. Their arms jerk, hollow eyes flutter open with a rattling inhale. Fuck, but they’re a mess: splotchy bruises maim every inch of their skin and their chest heaves with each gurgled breath. Trickles of blood cut streaks from lip to chin, temple to cheek, and mat their hair in a sticky tangle. While they struggle to stand their awkward movements prove that Sans has broken a considerable number of bones, including their leg and ribs.

But even so — _even so_ — the real knife is clutched tight as ever in one hand.

Sans closes his eyes.

“Please.”

They limp forward, he can hear them.

“There’s just a couple timelines left before everything’s over.”

A grunt or whimper. From the parasite or Frisk?

“I don’t know who or even what you are, but… Can’t you bring yourself to care? Even a little?” he says. Then, in a stroke of impulsiveness, he adds, “I’ve lived this scene time and time again, and I’ll continue to do so, as many times as it takes.”

Sans hears the human pause and looks up at them. They stand in a pool of red sunlight, their shadow stretched long and black and thin beside them. This…is a good sign, isn’t it?

“But… The real problem is, I’m not sure if he can survive the next reset.” Silence. “You understand, right? If you keep going the way you’re going, everything will end.”

Slowly, very slowly, the human puts their other foot forward to limp closer, cutting the distance between them to about six steps. Surreptitiously, Sans hikes up his elbows.

“Heheheh… Buddy, you probably don’t even know how this affects you. But whatever, that’s not my business, is it? So, no matter what it is you want, just remember—”

Five steps.

“Papyrus believed in you until the end.”

Four steps.

“He kept believing even when it meant getting killed over and over.”

Three steps.

“Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Two.

“…Heh. At least understand this. By the last reset…”

One.

“You _will_ make things right.”

Frisk lashes out. The knife flashes a silver streak as Sans sidesteps it easily. His chuckle is tight and rueful.

“Heh, didja really think you would be able—”

Frisk laughs.

Frisk laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and _laughs_.

And instinctively Sans freezes because it’s the same buzzing, static-filled voice from his red-sky nightmare, and that’s when they finally manage to slice the dagger across his ribs.

There’s a jolt of cold pain as if he’d been electrocuted and he chokes. Coughs. A mixture of petals and red liquid spills from his teeth. Suddenly it’s very hard to breathe.

But it doesn’t stop. They don’t stop. Frisk laughs and laughs and seizes his face, hooking dusty broken fingers into his blooming eye socket where the flowers twist and shriek. The blade rips into his bones again and Sans goes down, shoved over by the grinning human. Their broken leg slumps and oozes dark blood but the other pins Sans’ chest down by the knee. In a panic he scrabbles at their face, phalanges scratching their skin, and as he does he realizes in horror that color’s seeping back into one hollowed eye.

A piece of a scarlet sky.

The knife slides out and cuts a gash across his sweater; it catches on something and rips it away and Sans spits up red at the pain.

The knife slashes. His jacket tears open.

 _Slash_. Long, tapering petals shred.

 _Slash_. The flowers in his head are screaming, the noise pulling his skull apart.

 _Slash_. The petals spill from his body, endless.

 _Slash_. Is it the sunlight or the viscous liquid from his bones that soak them red?

 _Slash_. He doesn’t know anymore.

 _Slash_. It hurts.

 _Slash_. It hurts so much.

 _Slash_. Make it stop.

_Slash. Slash. Slash._

The tile floor is strewn with innumerable meadow saffron blossoms, which saturate the air with their sweet heady fragrance. A petal rests by Sans’ teeth, fluttering weakly with every wheeze he takes. Oh, fuck, it hurts, it— Sans lurches and rasps in agony as the human hovers above him. Bitter, red-tinted sap drips from the point of their knife; they sit on his chest like a demon and slowly pick flowers from his bones.

There are so many. So many.

His magic hadn’t done a thing after all.

“H… Heh…” Yet Sans manages to leer at them with teeth stained crimson. His fingers rest limp over his shattered ribcage, and twitch once when a blossom wilts against them. The flowers wail louder against the inside of his head. His vision swims enough that he can’t make out the expression on their face.

“Just…don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

And with the last of his magic, Sans lets his eye flare and the floor turns to snow.

The red-washed corridor ceiling has been exchanged for one of stone and earth. Over the coppery fire of gushing ribs and the sugary rot of dying flowers, Sans smells it: the crisp cleanliness of snow, the faint salt of ice water.

And beyond that — the tree-scent of geraniums.

The snow feels good against his sliced bones, feverish with death; Sans senses his body dissipating, turning to dust even as he digs shaking phalanges into the ground and pulls with the remainder of his strength. He leaves behind dark red smears and shredding petals in the snow.

Sans can’t see. Pain blots his vision black and the flowers in his socket swell, pounding at the inside of his skull with sick fragrance. He swears he feels something prickling deep within his benumbed bones as the blooms twist. In desperation he reaches out, pawing blindly through the snow. There’s no time left. There’s no time left.

Where? Where is it? Where—

His fingers claw into soft fabric and Sans lets out a sob of joy.

He pulls the scarf to him and buries his face into its threadbare folds. The stained purple blossoms drain him dry bit by bit, sucking at his soul’s last dregs in order to stay alive. Their roots pulsate through him like veins and drink up the red of his blood. Despite the snow, Papyrus’ scarf is still soft and dry and it smells like flowers, tomato sauce, and detergent.

Like home.

He whispers into it: “Be strong just one more time, okay?”

Sans dies with his face pressed into his brother’s scarf, and meadow saffron blooming from his dust.

* * *

Sans wakes up in bed.

Innumerable flowers unfurl and quiver in his chest, up his throat, out of his skull.

He lies there for a long minute, basking in the wan light of his window.

The house is warm. The scent of garlic and tomatoes hangs in the air. When Sans finally gets up, he walks right by the notebook on his drawers and heads downstairs.

And there’s Papyrus. Standing in the kitchen, putting two plates of breakfast pasta on the counter for his brother and himself. The red scarf billows like a cape when he spins around upon hearing Sans and calls, “Good morning, Sans!”

Sans stands unblinking at the kitchen doorway before he steps forward and grabs Papyrus, holding him like a drowning man. His brother jumps, staring down at him in bewilderment, before a fond smile crosses Papyrus’ face and he kneels to return Sans’ embrace.

Sans can barely see his face anymore, lost as it is in vermilion petals.

This is it. This is their last chance.

Wind whistles through the underground like breath over a bottle’s rim. The packed snow crunches satisfyingly under Sans’ slippers while he and Papyrus head out to their sentry posts. Aside from Papyrus’ buoyant chatter, it’s awfully quiet. Sans doesn’t see the elusive movements of monsters between the trees, doesn’t hear their soft breaths. There’s no one but him and his brother out here in the forest.

Their exhalations trail behind them: ribbons of silvery white.

Thinking like that, Sans doesn’t hear Papyrus calling him for a while.

“Sans? Brother?”

“Y-Yeah, Papyrus?”

His left socket has cracked open almost all the way around the side of his face; inside the layers of his clothing Sans can feel saffron petals cushioning his bones. Papyrus smiles down at him. It’s a gentle expression.

“Brother, do you think we’ll catch a human today?”

Sans wonders. Part of him hopes not. Part of him hopes that they won’t show up, even though the whole point of the reset is that they’re still alive and have returned. But honestly Sans doesn’t want to focus on them. He doesn’t want to think about Frisk.

He wants to think about Papyrus. His brother.

If this is the last time Sans will ever see him, then nothing else matters.

“Heheh, yeah. I’ve got a good feeling we’ll catch one this time.”

Papyrus beams, and Sans can’t help but smile back.

They split up to head off for their respective sentry posts, but Sans takes a moment to stand still and breathe. The air seems as though it’s frozen around his head, a thin cloud of mist drifting around his ankles. Sans’ breathe seeps slowly through his teeth and he takes the rest of the way to the Ruins slow.

The door is closed. The snow outside it, undisturbed. Sans rocks back onto his heels and gazes up at the Delta Rune emblazoned over it. Quietly he wonders about the lady behind it. Has she been well? Is she still alive? Or is she also a pile of ashen dust by now, yellow yarrow springing from her remains?

The caverns sound so empty, although the stale air is sweet as ever.

The sound of a lock unlatching.

Sans raises his head when the door creaks open, and a small, familiar figure walks through.

They don’t stop until there’s barely three feet of space in between the two of them. Then the human takes a deep breath, exhales in a gust, lifts their gaze to meet his anxious one.

Heavy eyelids. Bruised petals.

Relief floods every inch of Sans’ battered soul, and the flowers in him shiver. “Heya, Frisk.”

They smile.

“Come with me.”

They reach out.

“One last time.”


End file.
